Self-Building, "Issues" and Resistance to Practice

Last weekend a couple of sorors stopped by for girls night in. It was supposed to be our weekly writer's club meeting, but instead we got sucked in to a few specials that were running on VH1. The first was And You Don't Stop: 30 Years of Hip-Hop--a documentary that I had seen before. Afterwards, we watched DMC: My Adoption Journey.

It was personally moving to me, watching Darryl McDaniels' story unfold because I was adopted. I can't begin to tell you how much that verb defined me from childhood through adolescence and into adulthood. Unlike Darryl, I always knew I was adopted. With that knowing came this constant wondering about where I fit, a sense of alienness inside my family, a perpetual identity crisis. I used to think that there would always be some missing piece in my life unless I pieced together my own adoption journey and understood where I came from, what my birth parents were like, why my birth mother gave me up.

A few months before my daughter was born back in 1996, my parents gave me my adoption papers. Although no identifying information was provided, there were brief biographical sketches of both of my parents. I remember sitting alone in the house I shared with her father. I read it, and I wept. And I felt such a sense of release. Somehow that small picture... that small window into my birth parents' interests, talents and families allowed me to feel some sense of closure.

Looking back on it now, it amazes me... the intricacy we can infuse into our stories about our lives and what they mean. We make it all up. All of it. And sometimes it consumes us. For years I had this ongoing drama going about being adopted and what it means. But for me, instead of launching my own adoption journey, I embarked on a spiritual journey. Along that path, I found A Course in Miracles, which is very comparable to Buddhism in certain respects (in my opinion... but I'll save that discussion for another day).

The Course is all about dismantling the ego's hold on our perceptions and our actions. The one year self-study program contains 365 lessons which like koans attempt to crack through the usual way of thinking and open our minds to new possibilities. No doubt, it is a controversial text... but those who have really mined it come through the experience with amazing insights into the self, the ego, forgiveness, right seeing, and love. Reading it, I found quotes like this that made me see my own issues around being adopted in a different light:

The Course doesn't stop at applying this idea to the self... it requires you to apply it to all things. What you think he is/she is/it is is a belief to be undone. I find that this fits comfortably with one of the Fifty Verses on the Nature of Consciousness in Thich Nhat Hanh's Transformation at the Base:

With store consciousness as its support,Manas arises.Its function is mentation,Grasping the seeds it considers to be a "self."

The object of manas is the perceiver aspect of store consciosness. Just as the perceiver naturally embraces the perceived, manas embraces and clings to this aspect of store consciousness, makes it into an object and that object becomes an idea of self. All manas does is to think and calculate, "This is me." This is called mentation (manana). Day and night, manas is always thinking, believing, grasping, and considering store consciousness as its object, as a separate entity. It is always persent as a kind of instinct that takes its object as itself.

And this is why we have "issues." We look for them. We construct them. We take care of them. We become attached to them.

Watching another adoption story unfold, witnessing it with some distance and objective perspective, I started to understand the spiritual futility of it all alongside the fundamental and adamant importance placed upon it by the ego. And I could see all "issues" in this light.

I've been stuck in a very ego-centered place these past few months with so much worry about my career, so much irritation because there has been so little stroking of my ego. People keep knocking down my damned towers (or at least I'm feeling like they are) and I'm not happy about it. I've felt stretched to the limit, and I haven't been practicing. These things together leave me vulnerable, grasping for some sense of calm... some mental "home". There has been no affirmation of self to uphold whatever "me" I think I am and in the absense of that affirmation, the "I" has felt very unsafe.

But I think that's just what happens when we attempt to take refuge in everything except the Three Jewels. What happiness can be found by seeking refuge or salvation in anything else? As for me, I'm just looking at the ways I tend to feed my "issues" and how disconnected, self-indulgent and ego-affirming it all is. It's no wonder I have been having difficulty and resistance around my practice.

I haven't been blogging because I haven't known what to say. I guess I've felt like Jeff did when he wrote:

There seems so little to say lately. It is hard to keep up a blog on
Buddhist practice when you are busy with the problem of Buddhist
practice in everyday life itself.

I've found myself wondering about the place of this "Buddhist Blog" in my life when it is absent of any real Buddhist practice. Today, I'm tired of fighting it, avoiding it, resisting it, and contemplating all the reasons why I fight it, avoid it, and resist it. All of this self-building leaves me tired and sluggish and instead of writing another word I just need to get active with my practice. Maybe I'll be back later to talk about it.

What makes you think you're not practicing? Sitting on a cushion isn't the only form of practice. In fact, it sounds like your practice is growing (though it may not be what you think it should be). You're seeing reality in everyday life, and gaining deep insight as a result. How can this not be practice?

One of my biggest gripes with Zen (and that doesn't mean I don't love it, cause I do) is that we're taught that meditation is the only useful form of practice. This simply isn't true, and in some ways it hinders us from learning to bring our practice of mindfulness into everyday life. I haven't sat on a cushion since last August, and I feel better for it. Life is my Zen practice. Living mindfully, with loving-kindness, compassion, peace and joy. Of course, there are days when I fall short, but that's okay since I'm only human: prone to mistakes and limited by my very nature.

So, don't be so hard on yourself (I think this is the third time I've said this to you =). You're doing good work, and years of habitual patterns don't just transform overnight. Here's a great article from Access to Insight about practicing the four sublime states (http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/
nyanaponika/wheel006.html). In Mahayana and Zen they're called the four immeasurables, and I highly recommend their practice. If nothing else, a change of mental scenery may be refreshing =).

I get what you're saying and I thank you for saying it. I am fundamentally hard headed so don't be surprised or impateint with me if you come back and find yourself saying the same thing at some point in the future ;)

Haven't had a chance to check out the four sublime states yet but I will. Thanks for the pointer.

HumanityCritic... thanks for stopping by. Not much going on here lately but hopefully that will change soon.

Just ran across your post while looking at ACIM-related blogs. Great post & discussion. I also saw that DMC special about his adoption search not too long ago. It was very touching and very emotional. I'm a Life Mom myself (prefer that term to the very undescriptive birth mom term) so actually I try to usually avoid watching things about adoption on TV because they either exploit people's emotions or give out a lot of misinformation. But the DMC special was very tasteful and well-done. Now I don't know if it interests you...but here is a little thought on how A Course of Miracles has helped me heal as a life mom. Obviously most life moms I know place their babies because they are told that it is the right thing to do. That a better off couple could offer the baby a better life and more love than a (usually) single, young mother could. They are told that it's selfish of them to consider raising the baby themselves. They are not told how adoption will rip open a piece of their heart that just will never heal. They don't know how they will go from being treated like angels before the adoption to uncaring, selfish, abandoning, undeserving mothers after the adoption if they dare talk about their experience and the baby that they still love. Society wants the babies...but also justs wants all the life mothers who provide those little babies to silently disappear. So what does a women do who has this huge hole of emptiness and pain in her heart over a decision that she can not change nor fix and a baby that she loves deeply but whom she is considered to be undeserving of even knowing if the baby is alive & happy? Is it no wonder that so many mothers shove this feeling deep down and pretend to follow society's desire that they "forget"... but yet are completely unprepared if they should be so lucky as to have the opportunity for reunion because it opens up a wound that has never healed and has only grown larger. Isn't it more of a wonder that there ever are positive adoption reunion stories when you have people (life parents, adoptees, and adoptive parents) coming together who don't know what to do to heal the hurts of their heart and who are still ruled by the ghosts of all their past hurts & experiences?

So what does ACIM offer me as a life mom? It offers me the only way I've found so far to completely heal that hole. It offers me the way to unconditionally love my daughter no matter what her path in life, no matter what her feelings about me might be. It offers release from the constant pain & ache... and by healing me it allows me to be there for her in the future (whether it be in ways that seem little or huge, temporary or permanent) so that instead of focusing in on my internal pain, I can be healed and offer God's love to her in a way that meets her needs. Being a life mother is very much about unconditional love and ACIM has shown me how to actually achieve that. (My little disclaimer is that of course I am not a "perfect" person... because I wouldn't be down here hanging on earth in this body if I was totally enlightened, right? So take my thoughts as part of my healing journey away from the ego and my little baby steps towards waking up.) Peace to you and HUGS!

SWD... Thanks for sharing this. I think giving a baby up for adoption is among the most selfless things that a woman can do. I think society does give (I like your term) Life Moms a bad rap and I'm glad you spoke to the issue. Glad you've found some healing through the Course.